Another Fall Won't Even Make A Dent
by dontbesojaded
Summary: Set immediately after "Snow Job". Sam and Diane argue a bit in the freezing cold and generally don't resolve anything. The usual for these two idiots.


_A/N: I was sort of inspired by samurai fraiser crane's "If I Could Tell You I Would Let You Know" to write something towards the end of season 2 where they really are just falling apart at the seams, and where they really don't resolve anything. Anyways you should go read her's if you haven't already because it is far better than mine. Reviews are lovely!_

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**_But all in all, another fall won't even make a dent  
The world will turn, at least that's what they say  
We'll crash and burn, it's hard to look away  
That kind of thing is easier to say than do._**

They didn't say anything for a long time after he walked back in the door. Diane let her smirk fall away and she bit her lip, disturbed by the twisted satisfaction she was feeling. They looked at each other evenly - her gaze cool and almost gloating, his fiery and furious - until it became another fight within itself, seeing who would look away first. They waited each other out.

She shifted uncomfortably without dropping her gaze, twisting her hands together in annoyance and anticipation. Silence had always unsettled her, it was usually indicative of two people who had nothing left to say to each other. It had been very quiet in her house before her parents divorce.

"Well," Sam finally said. The word brimmed with accusation.

She felt her stomach knot in a familiar revulsion at his scathing tone; but all but sighed with relief at the sound of his voice, finally breaking the silence. This was their entire existence, she noted almost wearily, an epic battle of warring emotions. They were locked in some odd limbo in which she loved and hated him with varying intensities. Two steps forward, one step back. They were a walking idiom. A living, breathing oxymoron. It was exhausting and yet, it was exhilarating. Oh, God, there it was again, see?

"Diane?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she felt a sharp edge rise up in her throat and didn't try to keep it down. "Was that an invitation to speak?"

"Since when have you ever needed to be invited to start talking?"

"If this is going to be another round of BS, Mr. Malone, then I'm quite sure I don't have anything of interest to add." She turned away from him.

"What are you saying here?" She could practically see him behind her, infuriated and bewildered. She could picture his expression perfectly. They'd been through this so very many times before.

"Not a damn thing, Sam," she half turned and raised her eyebrows, challenging him. Without even meaning to, she was at it again, playing games with him. She wasn't even sure who had won last time, but she got the idea neither of them had, and some nasty seed of panic and regret and confusion settled deep in her chest.

"Oh, I get it. You're just not gonna talk, is that it?"

That hadn't been it, not really, but now that he mentioned it she was sure it would totally infuriate him. So she shrugged and turned back towards the bar, busying herself with stacking glasses. He moved quickly to her side and caught her wrist, practically fuming, and for a moment she found herself terrified by his touch. He seemed unsure of what to do now that he had a hold on her, and it was that uncertainty that frightened her. So for a moment they just stood there, his fingers making marks in her skin. Waiting for something. The entire bar seemed to hold its breath. Sam let his out, deflated, and dropped her wrist like it had burned him.

"Well, hallelujah," he said suddenly, too loud in the lingering quiet, "Whaddaya know, guys! Chatty Kathy over here has an off button!" He spread his arms as if presenting her silence as some sort of triumph.

Carla let out an oddly half-hearted whoop of appreciation, but the rest of the bar remained reticent. The air felt heavy and awkward, and Diane was sure if she dared to look up she would only see averted eyes and shaking heads.

Her and Sam's displays, fiascos, scenes, tantrums, whatever you want to call them, were usually high on audience participation. People from all over the bar felt entitled to way in, shouting opinions, choosing sides, cheering and booing in equal proportions. She hardly noticed it anymore. But now no one made a sound. And thats when she knew that something must be very, very wrong. They were no longer the car crash that you crane your neck to see, made curious by the uncertainty of the outcome, half hoping the victims didn't make it, but telling yourself you just want to see if they're alright. No, now they had become the deer on the side of the road, the one still clinging to the last bits of life, inevitably doomed and beyond help. The kind you drive past with barely a glance and think_ gee, that's really too bad._

The quiet seemed to affect Sam too, and he moved closer, his voice much lower but not much gentler. "Lets do this somewhere else, please."

She nodded dumbly, forgetting that she was supposed to be giving him the silent treatment, and half-ignoring him, punishing him, so to speak. _Punishing_ him? Again she felt a sinking sensation in her chest and almost shook her head. Something was so completely wrong.

He took her elbow and tugged her towards the door, pulling it open he looked back at the bar for a half second, maybe ready to throw off some light hearted quip (probably at her expense) and relieve the muted air with a laugh. He was met with a sea of reproachful faces, and he let the door shut behind them without saying a word.

It was frigid outside. Too cold to be out without a jacket, but she had forgotten hers inside so she crossed her arms, determined not to shiver. Sam dropped her arm, slowing down so she could keep up. She could feel his anger dissipate, heat dissolving in the cold air. She was almost a little disappointed. She would have preferred a straight fight into what she knew this was going to turn into: her feeling guilty for still being upset when he'd already let it go.

"Where are we going?" she ventured after a few blocks. He only shrugged, they lapsed into grueling silence again.

"I hate that you lied to me," she stated blankly when she just couldn't stand it anymore.

He snorted. "Really? I couldn't tell."

"Do you always have to do that? Make a joke out of everything?" she lined her words with as much iciness as she could muster through frozen lips.

He shrugged again, but wouldn't meet her eyes. She stopped walking and glanced around, taking in their surroundings. It was late evening and the street lamps had just begun to come on. They were on some abandoned stretch of sidewalk across from a park with walking trails running through it like a patchwork maze. The sky was almost purple above the softly lit city. It would have been beautiful in other circumstances. She supposed it was beautiful under _these_ circumstances, she just didn't have the heart to enjoy it.

"It's not even that you lied, Sam," she said, looking back to where he'd stopped next to her.

"It's...it's not?"

She could see him franticly racking his brain for some other indecency he'd committed in the past 24 hours. She shook her head and looked up, determined to make him understand, for once to get through to him. "No, it's how easy it was for you."

For second she saw a flicker of something beyond his blase facade, something real and understanding and maybe even, God forbid, apologetic. And then something changed in his eyes and it was gone, a curtain falling shut to cover the man behind it. _Never mind that man behind the curtain_, she thought, so frustrated and exhausted that she nearly laughed.

He said, with mock humbleness, "Well, I've always been a brilliant actor."

She felt her face morph into an expression of total disgust. "You're _despicable_," she spat, and sat down hard on a bench she hadn't noticed before. She turned her face away from him when he sat down next to her.

"Maybe," he said, accepting. "But you love me anyway."

She sucked in a breath and hated him because he was right. Oh, but it was even worse than that (and how could it be any worse?) she didn't just love him in spite of him being despicable, she seemed to love him _because_ he was despicable. Or maybe this entire thing just made no sense at all. Maybe trying to analyze it was an exercise in futility, and, dear God, if that was the case maybe she was be better off dying of frostbite out here.

"Look, sweetheart..." he began, and she bristled at just the thought of him making another excuse.

"Oh, please. Spare me. And don't you "sweetheart" me, not when we're ..."

"What? What the hell are we doing, Diane?" he said softly.

_We're falling apart, Sam. We're practically roadkill at this point, we're beyond help_, she almost smiled._ Roadkill. How poetic. How poetic, and how painfully true._

"I don't know anymore," she said. And that much was true at least, but it felt like a lie because she was biting something back. She didn't know what they were doing, but she knew they were almost done with whatever it was. This wasn't quite the end, but they were approaching it swiftly.

"I don't think I ever did," he said. "I was hoping someone knew where this was going."

She laughed, bitterly.

"Jesus, its cold," he said after a beat, "Aren't you freezing?"

She shrugged. "It would have been colder in Vermont."

"Diane. Come on. I thought we were past that."

"Past it? We haven't even gotten to it yet!" she shook her head in disbelief. "What if...what if I had believed you?"

She was suddenly overwhelmed with immense pity for this other-Diane, this alternate universe clone who had fallen for Sam's tall tales and was sitting dumbly, naively waiting for him to return from his "funeral". And maybe she suspected...but she couldn't be sure so she just sat back and let him walk all over her.

And there was a resonance in her reverie because a year and a half ago that would have been her. Naive, trusting. She felt for the hundredth time all the ways Sam had changed her, hardened her, made her stronger and yet more bitter, cynical. And she was bewildered by the way she seemed to have had no effect on him. She felt the sinking in her stomach again.

"Wouldn't you have felt horrible?" she was pleading now, praying for him to redeem himself and therefore her and her choice to love him. If it really had been a choice.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess I would have. I guess thats why I kept coming back."

And it wasn't perfect but she understood it, could accept it. He came back because he cared, in some fucked up way he really cared, and she stayed for the same reason. They were both so totally hopeless that somehow they'd manage to find even ground, even solace in it.

She leaned into him and sighed, in defeat, in surrender, in exhaustion, "Ok."

"Ok?"

She nodded into his chest.

"We're ok?" he asked, and then, clarifying, "Just ok?"

"I think thats all we can be," she said, and he did seem to understand that. Or at least accept it. And for a moment she wished he wouldn't, wished he would fight for her instead of just _accepting_ their degradation. But she would save her wishes for shooting stars, and besides you couldn't see any under the glare of the street lights.

He stood and offered her a hand. She took it and let him pull her up and then close to him.

"Let's get you back. They're all going to think I killed you or something," he murmured.

And it was so not funny that it was and she laughed anyways. He smiled at her, a little sadly, she thought, but maybe she was reading too much into things.

_He didn't even apologize_, she thought as they began the walk back. _And I don't even care_.

Maybe they were beyond resolution. All that was left to do now was wait with the quiet sort of anticipation that you see in audiences faces before a bomb explodes in a action movie. She watched her feet as they walked, his arm around her, not wanting to look up to see exactly when the sidewalk would end, eerily content with just holding onto him until they eventually (and inevitably) came to it.


End file.
